LogFAQs > #986320081

TLDR: Just read bold.

So, okay, I've had this theory about your skill at a game as it develops. Let's say that if you have never played a game (even if you've played similar games) your skill at it is 0/10, and if you have genuinely mastered every conceivable aspect of a title, it's 10/10.

Typically, once you complete the tutorial, you automatically shoot up to at least a 2/10 because now you know how to move, attack, jump, etc. And by the time you finish the first chunk of the game, you're operating by necessity at a 3/10. At least, an average player would be. Maybe you're amazing and wonderful and learn games really quickly. I've seen people that will progress much faster. But let's pretend I'm talking about the norm, and you can substitute every time I say "you" with referring to me instead. In Hollow Knight terms, this would be learning your way around the Forgotten Crossroads. I've seen people who are not very skilled try to play HK, and they die repeatedly in the XR because they're still playing at a 2/10 level. You won't get through False Knight, etc, without learning to play at a 3/10.

Now, 3/10 will carry you for a little while, through the easier parts of the game, but at some point the difficulty spikes. When you hit the Moss Knights and then Hornet, you have to be better. That's 4/10. Of course, you don't just magically level up in discrete numbers. You're sliding along a number line. And you might have reached a skill level beyond what is required for that portion of the game. But we'll say that this is roughly the benchmark for what a 4/10 represents in HK.

Here's the thing: A typical game will let you coast on 4/10, right up until the end. Something late in the game will be harder, and you'll have to demonstrate 5/10 skill to get by. But that will be it. A typical game of typical difficulty will be beatable when your skill at it is 5/10. If a game is "easy," you can beat it at a 4. If it's "hard," you need to be a 6. And rarely does a game escape those bounds.

For Hollow Knight, you might be able to say you need 6/10 skill to finish the game. Perhaps not the first ending (though I personally found Watcher Knights maddeningly difficult,) but for the additional challenges posed by the true ending, it's certainly arguable that 6/10 is required.

But HK doesn't stop there. NKG, exploring Godhome, finishing the Path of Pain. These are tasks that are going to demand you learn the game better, to a 7/10 level or maybe even 8. If nothing else, finishing the Pantheons is certainly going to be 8/10 territory. That doesn't make you the best Hollow Knight player ever. There are plenty of speedrunners and rando runners who will still put you to shame -- those are the 9's, and maybe a rare few are even a 10 -- but you have to really take your mastery of the game to a pretty high level.

And again, a title that only expects 5/10 mastery from you by the end is the average. So because just the base game itself is pushing past this, I would argue that Hollow Knight is a borderline hard game. Of course, these checkpoints are subjective, know-em-when-you-see-em type stuff, but I think the general argument holds, even if some games don't allow for skill expression that could be categorized on the same scale.

This post is already long enough, so I won't talk much about Silksong, but the one thing it definitely lacks in this discussion is a fluid on-boarding process. It basically assumes that you've played Hollow Knight, that you'll transfer those skills over, and that you'll hit the ground running at basically a 4/10 right away. The Marrow feels like Fungal Wastes to me. Imagine playing HK and skipping straight to having the fireball and the dash, and having to begin the game by descending through Fungal. And then fight a really souped-up Massive Mosscharger at the end that hits for 2. And then Brooding Mawlek for good measure.

edit: Some folks posted while I was writing this. The platforming of HK is generally trivial, so any comparisons to something like Celeste would need to be relative. And I've never played a Soulsbourne game, so I can't compare there, but obviously my idea here of talking about mastery of a game in relative terms breaks down when you start comparing games with radically different skill ceilings or perhaps even genres. I dunno, maybe I'm full of crap. If I am, just say that.